For Hire

I am supposed to review the new collection of R Raj Rao’s poems, ‘For Hire’ published by Poetrywalla. I wanted to do it, and now that I have been asked to do it, I’m at sea. It’s a daunting task, not just because the poems are unlike anything written by an Indian poet, the poems are decidedly gay, from beginning to end, but also because I have known the poems so intimately.

I have witnessed the birth of this book from close quarters. I know each of the new poems in the collection, when they were written, how they were written and the inside story of how it came about. I have met a number of his subjects. I remember the poet calling me up every time he finished a new poem. I have been the first reader of most of these new poems.

What’s more, I’m also there in one of the poems, no, not as a protagonist but as an extra.

I remember the evening when we finally decided on the cover image, as the artist showed us his new works in an iPad.

This was all before the fallout. Now, we don’t even talk, or write mails. Now, he has erased me from his life.

Strangest things have happened!

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Get the book from Flipkart, Here.